


Strangers

by Luzula



Category: due South
Genre: Backstory, First Meetings, Gen, ds_snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-08
Updated: 2007-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:49:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha and Caroline meet for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you kindly to Primroseburrows for the beta.   
> Prompt: stranger

Robert was her son and she loved him, but Martha had no illusions that his future wife would lead an easy life. Sometimes she thought that perhaps he ought to marry the RCMP, like a nun wedded to the Church. He certainly spent enough time at his duties.

So when she saw Robert at her door with a young woman, slight under her voluminous fur parka and looking a bit nervous, she had a moment of doubt. Robert stepped forward and made the introductions. Martha nodded, and stepped around the desk where she'd been keeping track of book loans.

"Take your coat off, girl, and I'll make us some tea."

Caroline's chin came up, and there was a sudden spark in her eyes. "My name is Caroline."

"So it is. Would you like some tea, Caroline?" Perhaps she was stronger than she looked, after all.

Martha went over to heat water for the tea, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Robert's head turned down towards Caroline's, wholly focused on her. Martha felt unexpectedly melancholy. She hadn't been especially close to Robert in a long time, but he was still her son. Now, he belonged irrevocably to another woman.

She sincerely wished them luck.

***

Books. Books everywhere: on shelves, along the walls, and in neat piles on the desk. There was a woman sitting there, adjusting her glasses as she looked up. Her graying hair was bound back from her face, and her eyes were cool and measuring, as if Caroline was a slab of cheese being weighed at the general store.

Caroline might have taken a step back if not for the reassuring presence of Robert at her back.

But when Martha called her "girl", something stubborn woke in Caroline. She hadn't survived being kidnapped and almost flung into a canyon for Robert's mother to talk down to her. And she might not be educated the way Martha was, but she knew plenty about life. She knew how to trap, and how to skin a caribou. She knew how to use the short summer, full of light and life, to prepare for the winter that always came.

"My name is Caroline."

"So it is. Would you like some tea, Caroline?" Caroline took her parka off and hung it on a hook by the door. Maybe she could get along with Robert's mother after all.

Martha had gone to prepare the tea, and Caroline turned to Robert, who was looking at her with something like wonder on his face. Their eyes met. Above all, she knew what she wanted.


End file.
